Insurance agencies are among some of the most common users of answering services. A large number of answering services say they serve insurance agencies, but many don’t offer the full list of features you’d expect from an answering service, like appointment booking, live call answering, a free trial, and message delivery to text or email. These are features an insurance

When a customer with an appointment calls to cancel, they can either be met with a friendly response or a passive-aggressive response. It’s not in your business’ best interest to try and “guilt-trip” customers who need to cancel appointments; instead, your appointment policy should reflect the cutoff time for cancellations and note any fees or charges that may apply after

The salon industry is one of many that regularly employ front desk receptionists to take calls and manage appointments. If you own a beauty salon or barber shop or are in the process of opening one, you’re probably concerned about cutting costs wherever possible without sacrificing the quality of your services. You might have assumed that hiring a receptionist is

Who answers your business phone every day? Most entrepreneurs report that they are the ones to answer the phone when it rings. Some don’t have a business phone number – instead, they just use their cell phone to field business calls. There are three problems with this method. First, your callers can tell the difference between a business phone number

Operating a business online is more common than ever before, with more than 70% of businesses in the United States being started from home. An online business has a lot of advantages over a brick-and-mortar business, the first and foremost being that it’s a lot less expensive to open and run. The business that operates entirely online doesn’t usually require

Your current law firm intake process may serve you well enough as is, but if you want to grow your firm and work with more clients, a few small changes to that process can go a long way. The most efficient intake processes anticipate clients’ needs to simplify and shorten the process. If it’s easy for people to find you

Voicemail isn’t the communication catch-all it once was. People are abandoning their voicemail inboxes in their personal lives, with some admitting they haven’t checked their voicemail in a year or more and simply delete the notifications as they come in. When those voicemails are mostly non-urgent calls from friends, telemarketers, and maybe parents, ignoring voicemail entirely becomes easy. In business,

Attorneys are intensely busy throughout the workweek. They need to be in court often and have to remain flexible for their clients. The law office can offer some needed administrative support, but often, talented paralegals get stuck answering the phones instead of doing legal research. If you want to really succeed as an attorney and make use of your paralegal’s

Dr. Dori Gatter, a Conversational client, is using a virtual receptionist to turn prospects into clients. She was recently featured on the Selling the Couch podcast for practitioners to discuss ways to turn callers and prospects into clients. Dr. Gatter is a Licensed Professional Counselor with her own private practice and group practice in West Hartford, Connecticut. Find more information

A customer can have many options available to them as far as reaching a company’s customer service department or representative, but many times, the choice comes down to a customer service phone call vs email. Between a phone call vs email, which channel is preferred by customers, and does one have a faster resolution time than the other? Customer Service